Électre / Oreste

BETWEEN THE COMÉDIE-FRANÇAISE and Greek theatre, there is a long history. Perpetual renewing itself, this history alternates between borrowings and emancipation. Euripides, the most tragic of Greek poets according to Aristotle, inspired two plays performed on the stage of the Comédie-Française in 1681, that is to say one year after its foundation: Oreste (by Le Clerc and Boyer, after Iphigenia in Aulis) and Hercule (by La Tuilerie, after Herakles). Even though he remains the most performed Greek poet –far ahead of his compatriots Aeschylus, Aristophanes and Sophocles, compared to whom Latin theatre in fact has the air of a poor relation– it is primarily through adaptations that Euripides is performed, most famously in the works of Racine. In the nineteenth century, the attention paid to the original work, visible in the use of antique costumes and sets, was part of the new wave of enthusiasm for Greco-Roman antiquity, which had already been idealised during the Renaissance. As the twentieth century approached, the translations become more faithful to the originals.

Over the centuries, the heroes of Greek theatre, whose modernity is praised by Jacqueline de Romilly, have therefore provided actors with choice roles. As for Greek history and its famous episodes such as the origins and consequences of the Trojan War, it has fueled, through Racine, the imagination of playwrights up the twentieth century as well as the Repertoire of the Comédie-Française, enriched by Giraudoux’s La Guerre de Troie n’aura pas lieu (The Trojan War Shall not Be), (directed by Raymond Gérôme, 1988), Kleist’s Penthesilea (directed by Jean Liermier, 2008), and Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida (directed by Jean-Yves Ruf, 2013).

How should ancient theatre be staged today? While the mysteries of The Bacchantes (Euripides, directed by André Wilms 2005) unfold among fragments of polychrome pillars, the city of The Birds (Aristophanes, directed by Alfredo Arias, 2010) is transposed into a setting that is recognisable to the Comédie-Française audience: Place Colette. As for the new Heracles (Euripides’ Herakles, directed by Christophe Perton, 2010), he takes the form of a trader. Due to its ambivalent character, simultaneously archaic and modern, Greek theatre promises to offer directors and audiences material for reflection and innovation for a long time to come.